Wednesday's Words on a Friday

 

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along to read it and add a few encouraging words.

This month the words/prompts are supplied by David M Gascoigne and can be found here

This week's words/prompts are: 

1. plumage 

2. sleek 

3. peripatetic 

4. agony 

5. permissive 

6. pray 

and/or: 

1. duty 

2. colourful 

3. absent 

4. mastery 

5. prey 

6. orchid 

Here is my story:

The agony of losing his family and home still resided within Khoral Kai, but the pain was becoming less, although the anniversary of that day each year was hard. He had decided it was his duty now, to learn as much as possible about his new home, Earth.

His lifestyle had become somewhat peripatetic, although not completely nomadic as he had the lighthouse as a base to always return to. His mastery of Earth’s languages had progressed in leaps and bounds, the more he travelled, the more he learned. He was never absent for long, a few weeks at a time were sufficient, then he enjoyed his time in the village, telling all about his most recent sojourn.

Khoral’s friend Gail, who ran the counter at the bakery took great delight in his descriptions, the colourful array of orchids in the hothouse of the botanic gardens of London, the sleek coat of the black panther as it prowled the enclosure as if searching for prey, the brilliance of the plumage on the tropical birds as he was paddled by natives in a canoe along a stretch of the Amazon River.

Khoral and Gail had many such conversations, he with speech and she with writing her replies and questions. Khoral had drawn a picture of his lost mother, Gaille, to show this Gail how similar they were in looks. Gail had written in reply, “I pray that she is in heaven now, with the angels.” This had led to a long discussion one evening with Gail and her family, even neighbours had dropped in to the garden where they all sat by a small fire discussing their various beliefs on heaven, whether or not the souls interacted with the angels or if the angels just looked after them as parents would their children.

Did souls stay in heaven forever or did they return to earth getting reborn as new babies? Did they all sit around playing harps as was pictured in a children’s book Khoral had seen? Or did they learn new skills? Khoral’s friend Eric declared that souls did get reborn, his neighbours toddler daughter was an exact copy of a grandparent’s sister, in mannerisms as well as looks. Old Pete, who was visiting that day, wondered if that was truly a soul reborn or was it just genetics that made the toddler that way?

The discussion then moved to children and their behaviour, almost all present lamented the permissive parenting that had too many children thinking they were each the most special person on earth and entitled to have whatever they wanted when they wanted it. “Surely this can’t be good for society!” was the general opinion.